Here is some information on Mycoplasma Fermentans, one of the things that Mr. Im evidently worked with (at least twice). I found it by doing a search on "Mycoplasma Fermentans" and "terrorism." It's long, but it's interesting if you have the time.
By: Fumento, Michael
Reason
Mar97, Vol. 28, Issue 10
Why are Gulf War vets getting sick? You won't find out by reading The New York Times and USA Today.
"For Some, a Day of Betrayal," ran a headline in Denver's Rocky Mountain News the day before Veterans Day. A Persian Gulf vet said to be suffering the effects of the mysterious Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) was profiled, and the story by reporter Dick Foster contained a startling figure: "Cancers have developed in Gulf veterans at three to six times the rate among the general population." That news must have shot around Colorado faster than a Scud missile. Many vets probably spent their Veterans Day searching for lumps, bumps, sores, or anything else that might be a sign of cancer.
Three days later, a study appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine. Using the latest data available, it reported the cancer rate of Persian Gulf vets was slightly below that of comparable vets who didn't deploy to the Gulf, and far lower than that of the comparable civilian population.
Welcome to the world of Gulf Lore Syndrome.
(snip)
Medicine and 'Miracles'
(snip)
Another doctor who is revered by sick Persian Gulf vets and has testified before the Presidential Advisory Committee is Garth Nicolson. Nicolson is a highly regarded cancer researcher who says he and his wife Nancy, a molecular biophysicist, left the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to pursue a cure for GWS after his stepdaughter, a Gulf War vet, fell ill.
Like Urnovitz, the Nicolsons claim great success with doxycycline. Unlike Urnovitz, the Nicolsons blame not a virus but a bacterium, specifically mycoplasma fermentans (MF). They claim that using a special form of the polymerase chain-reaction (PCR) test, they have detected MF in about half of the vets with GWS symptoms. With PCR you take some blood from a person and use a chemical procedure to enlarge parts of the DNA of an organism (such as MF) that you think might be in the blood. If you use the chemical that would enlarge the DNA of MF and it works, then you know the MF is there. If the chemical doesn't enlarge it, you don't have MF. So far, so good.
But the same sensitivity that makes PCR a useful tool in finding what's in blood also makes it liable to find what's not there. Improperly cleaned and sterilized equipment will have all sorts of DNA strands on it that didn't come from the blood of the specified patient. In the most famous case of PCR contamination, Dr. David Ho--recently named Time's "Man of the Year" for his promising work on AIDS--published a study in the mid-'80s which, using PCR, detected the AIDS virus in numerous people who had tested negative in the standard blood test. It was a frightening result, but no one could duplicate his findings and Ho was forced to admit that his testing must have suffered contamination.
As with Ho's results, other doctors are finding they cannot duplicate Nicolson's PCR work on MF. This includes the man universally acknowledged as the leading expert on MF, Dr. Shyh-Ching Lo of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. "We've never found one" Persian Gulf vet with the bacterium, says Lo. "The Nicolsons claim their technique is different," allegedly using "a special form of PCR that's more sensitive." says Lo. Specifically, they claim their test can better find MF when it's hiding in the nucleus of the cell only. Lo says that's possible, "but we never truly get the detail of how [the Nicolsons] process PCR. They just give us the statements of their results." In late December, Garth Nicolson announced that he will divulge his testing technique, but he had not done so at this writing.
I asked Nicolson if there were any scientists who had duplicated his work. He named only one, Aristo Vojdani, himself a GWS advocate and doctor who specializes in multiple chemical sensitivity. MCS is an alleged ailment that mainstream organizations, such as the American Medical Association, find questionable, if not outright nonsense. (See "Sick of It All," June 1996.) Vojdani is also now among the shrinking number of researchers claiming that silicone breast implants are harmful.
The other way of judging the merit of the Nicolsons' PCR work would be to see where it has been published. One National Institutes of Health MF expert, who asked not to be identified, conceded that Nicolson had indeed published in this area, but only in "garbage journals." Indeed, of the seven pieces Nicolson sent me, six were in journals that specialize in MCS or related fields. The seventh was in The Journal of the American Medical Association--but it was only an unrefereed letter to the editor.
None of which conclusively proves that the Nicolsons' research is invalid. But even if their unique test does detect MF, it may have no connection to Gulf War Syndrome. For one, nobody knows how many perfectly healthy people carry around MF in their bodies, just as we carry around myriad types of benign and even helpful bacteria. More important, medical science so far has identified MF as a probable cause of just one health problem, rheumatoid arthritis. There is also some evidence it may be involved in acute respiratory problems. Sure, some Gulf vets have complained of aching joints and others of breathing troubles. But what of the 100-plus other problems they claim?
Further, the very idea of MF as a biological weapon, as the Nicolsons claim it was, is ludicrous. The purpose of biological weapons is to cripple, kill, and terrorize on the battlefield--not to cause aching joints in vets years later.
Nor does it help the Nicolsons' credibility that they suggest they are targets of a conspiracy because their work threatens the GWS coverup. Garth told the Houston Press, an alternative weekly, that while he and his wife were at M.D. Anderson, their faxes and letters were repeatedly intercepted, and their phone had been tapped so many times that "it was a record." Nancy also claims there have been six attempts on her life, but "assassins told her they saw her face and just couldn't Dull the trigge."
I asked Garth about this. "We had an armed agent who came into the hospital and opened an aluminum briefcase with a silenced Beretta [sub-machine gun] who identified himself as a defense intelligence agent and said to stop our work," he told me. Were there witnesses? He said yes but wouldn't supply their names. "Frankly, I don't want to discuss this because it detracts from what we're talking about," he said.
That's a matter of opinion. What's sad is that the vets are buying into such conspiracy theories. One of those vets is the 37th's Dan Topalski, who was told by Nicolson's lab that he and his wife were positive for MF. Topalski is terrified for himself and his spouse, and the other 37th vets are terrified for him. I called Topalski and told him that the nation's most eminent MF researcher, Dr. Shyh-Ching Lo, said he didn't think much of Nicolson's work. But Topalski told me that Lo was one of the government conspirators. "He was employed by Tanox Biosystems of Houston as their resident medical expert," he told me, "where he developed MF for warfare use." His source for this information? "Nancy Nicolson," he replied. "They both worked there in 1988."
Tanox informed me that they had never heard of either Lo or Nicolson. They claim their only research is in developing allergy treatments, and indeed they hold patents in this area. Nancy Nicolson, according to The Mail on Sunday, the British newspaper that interviewed her, also likes to talk about how Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip visited her, how the pope gave her a gold ring, and how her family has enough money to bring down the American economy.
Of course, it's far, far more likely that none of these deaths are related in the least. :-)
